A genteel, liberal southerner and an ardent nationalist, Walter Hines Page helped to transform American monthly magazine journalism during two decades on either side of the time line that marked the beginning of the twentieth century. To those southerners desiring proof, Page's editorship of the Atlantic Monthly and his founding partnership in a major national publishing house provided firm evidence of what an intelligent, articulate man from the defeated Confederacy could achieve in the mainstream of the nation's cultural and business life. After serving as ambassador to the Court of St. James's and becoming the subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning biography in the 1920s, Page was made into an inspiring national symbol, a patriotic legend just after his own time. Although today he seems less an epic hero than an illuminating "representative" man, his representativeness includes innovation that was important for American literature and American journalism.

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